Mount Townsend — Saturday, Nov. 6, 1999

Olympic Peninsula > Hood Canal

from lower trailhead it lightly asends forest to sink lake and a shelter (.5miles) from there you hike another half miles to the upper trail head, where the route steepens a bit and travels through rhodehdendron switching back up the mountain side. Soon we came to soem rock outcropings and the seenery changed to a mix of subalpine and lowland trees. After this it opened up into meadow and hikes across a creek which has great views of the valley. Past that we hiked through subalpine trees switching back at a moderate to steep grade. At 4800ft we encountered snow patches on the trail and the temperature was much cooler. A little farther up the trail turned to mostly meadows and it was very windy (60mph gust. we got just below the ridge at 6000ft and made camp on a snow patch about 6-8inches deep. After we had established camp we headed up to the summit wear, we all expirienced the stongest wind we had ever encountered in our 18 years of existance. it was anywhere from 60 to 120mph sustained gusts, it literally knocked us off our feet a few times and we had a hard time breathing (It had rained all day and there was a storm passing through). So we came back down and slept....the temp was very cold i dont reconmend a sleeping bag with a rating less than 0 degrees. we woke up the next morning and ate and made good time back down to our jeep. Oh yeah the view form the top was clear and extraordinary especially at night when you see city lights...i highly recomend this trail, but for a warmer time of year